Atlanta United forward Jamal Thiaré (center) celebrates after a goal during the first half of the Leagues Cup match against the Atlas at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA on Wednesday, August 6, 2025. Photo by Mitch Martin/Atlanta United
Atlanta United (5-13-16 overall in 2025) has released its 2026 preseason schedule. Along with a match at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground, the team will play several matches in Texas.
Last season, Atlanta United finished at the bottom of the MLS Eastern Conference standings. The story of the 2025 season will include injuries to key players, 16 losses, tough draws, and ultimately, a coaching change, as manager Ronny Deila was fired at the end of the season. Long-time goalkeeper and fan favorite, Brad Guzan, has also retired, while former manager Tata Martino was brought back to lead the club. Martino managed the club to a 2018 MLS Cup title and most recently managed Inter Miami FC before being fired.
Matt Edwards, 22, has started both games at right back for Atlanta United this season. A native of North Carolina, Edwards played 90 minutes in his first career start against CF Montreal and 72 minutes against Charlotte FC on Saturday, Mar. 1, 2025. Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
The preseason will also provide an opportunity for some of the team’s young players, such as Matt Edwards and 21-year-old goalkeeper Jayden Hibbert, to continue their development.
The Five Stripes will begin the preseason on their training grounds on Friday, January 30. The opponent, Lexington SC, is a United Soccer League club out of Kentucky. The match will take place at 11 a.m.
Next on the schedule will be MLS opponent, the Houston Dynamo, on Saturday, February 7. That match will take place at 8 p.m. on the Dynamo’s home turf, the Shell Energy Stadium in Houston.
Atlanta United will remain in Texas, playing matches against Red Bull New York on Wednesday, February 11 (noon), and on Valentine’s Day, Saturday, February 14 (1 p.m.). Both matches will take place at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas.
Atlanta United midfielder Ajani Fortune (above) at the team’s training facility in Marietta, Friday, May 23, 2025. Photo by Kerri Phox/The Atlanta Voice
Rafael Santos is already worth the price of admission.
Three games into his Colorado Rapids tenure, the club paying $125,000 in General Allocation Money — less than the going price of an international roster slot — is looking like highway robbery.
The left back has three assists in that time span, including one on the opening goal in Saturday’s 2-1 win against the Houston Dynamo at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
The assist itself wasn’t spectacular, but it was smart and required careful execution. On a free kick from striking distance, Santos lined up and postured to take it, but instead dragged it behind him to set up Cole Bassett for a shot on the move. The delicate setup created a path around the wall for Bassett to hit, which he did from about 22 yards out.
The strike was Bassett’s third goal of the season and first since mid-July. It was his 31st all-time for the Rapids, tying him with Chris Henderson for the sixth most in club history.
The Rapids’ winner came in the 90+6th minute, when a corner kick glanced off Paxten Aaronson’s head, then went in off Houston defender Felipe Andrade. All of DSGP thought Aaronson had scored his first goal for his new club, but it was credited as an own goal.
Santos continued his hot start with a pair of impressive crosses later in the first half. Either one could have netted an additional assist.
His signing was done in part to give competition to Sam Vines for the role moving forward with a less-than-impressive campaign from the Homegrown. So far, it’s a landslide at the top of that totem pole.
What impresses about Santos is what has been lacking from Vines. Vines made a name for himself in 2021 running in attacks and whipping in solid crosses, essentially making himself a winger who tracked back to defend. His service has not been the same since returning to the Rapids for the 2024 season.
In that sense, Santos has been a breath of fresh air. Both of those crosses had this in common: They were on time, on target, and hit with speed. The latter could be what benefits this team most.
The Rapids have been built for speed on the flanks, and even their strikers — Rafael Navarro and Darren Yapi — have some pace to them. In certain attacking scenarios, the speedsters put themselves in good spots but couldn’t get good service.
So far, all indications are that Santos could be that weapon. On both occasions Saturday night, a recipient got a foot to the ball but was a half step too late.
Jack McGlynn tied it up for Houston in the 68th minute with as easy a goal as he may ever score. Lawrence Ennali, who had been in a physical battle with right back Reggie Cannon for the first 15 minutes of the second half, beat Cannon to the touch line and lofted a cross to the back post. Goalkeeper Zack Steffen couldn’t jump high enough to snuff it out, then McGlynn flew in unmarked and tucked it into a wide-open net from close distance.
Former D.C. United coach Ben Olsen is set to take charge of the Houston Dynamo, according to a … [+] report Friday from The Athletic.
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It’s hard to remember a new coaching hire in MLS that will be more poorly received by a club’s own fans than Ben Olsen reportedly becoming the new coach of the Houston Dynamo. Almost as hard as remembering when such a reaction was so predictable.
Olsen was largely responsible for keeping D.C. United relevant for a decade in which there was below-average investment in the roster, and while the team played in a below-average facility until Audi Field finally opened in 2018.
His overall 134-87-153 MLS record (W-D-L) is genuinely impressive given the rosters he managed, as is his ability to reach the playoffs in six of 10 seasons in the nation’s capital. United had missed out on the playoffs in all three years prior to his hiring. They have now missed them in each of the two seasons since his firing.
But Olsen — fairly or not — also has the reputation of a manager who can do more with less but not more with more, whose tactics aren’t particularly progressive and who generally loses on the big stage. His biggest successes came in years when little was expected of D.C., and his biggest disappointments (think 2013, 2017 and 2019) in years when the club was expected to build off achievements of a season before. He went 0-1-4 in the playoffs in his last five years on the job.
And if there was ever a description of the kind of situation where Olsen could be unfairly judged in his second bite of the MLS apple (pun intended), it’s in Houston.
As the only MLS club in the nation’s fourth-largest city and one of its largest Latino communities, the Dynamo have the profile of a sleeping giant. And when when Ted Segal took over as majority owner midway through the 2021 season, he promised spending and performance of an awakened one.
At best, Olsen’s hire signals to most fans that such promises are without a detailed vision. Olsen’s previous career suggests he may be able to restore the Dynamo to a regular playoff contender, but little more. And it’s unclear if that would move the needle in a city enormously passionate about the game, but also particularly for clubs on the other side of the border in LigaMX.
At worst, some from the outside could interpret this as a hire born in a small network of familiarity by general manager Pat Onstad, at a time when he hasn’t yet earned the luxury for the fanbase to trust his decisions.
The former Canada national team goalkeeper was Olsen’s first goalkeeping coach from 2011 to 2013. Olsen’s last goalkeeping coach, Zach Thornton, is now on the staff of the Dynamo. Although not on the Dynamo payroll, Houston native and resident Bobby Boswell is also a key figure in both Dynamo and United club history, and played with Olsen the player from 2004 to 2007 and for Olsen the coach from 2014 to 2017. In
Regardless of the real reasons Olsen is being hired, it’s understandable for Dynamo supporters who have seen one playoff appearance since 2014 to be suspicious given thee circumstances. It’s one thing to get a band together again, but another to do so when that band. But what exactly has that band achieved before?
Furthermore, Olsen was permitted to reach most of his achievements at D.C. in part because of his emotional connection to the club. As a player, he won two MLS Cups at D.C. and remains the team’s second all-time appearance leader, a history that helped him weather a miserable 2013 in particular. He has no such clout in Texas, narrowing his margin for error even further.
And lastly, Olsen is the first full-time Dynamo manager who isn’t a fluent Spanish speaker since Owen Coyle followed U.S. Soccer Hall of Famer Dominic Kinnear. Being bilingual certainly isn’t a requirement to have success as an MLS manager. But in a heavily bilingual market, it’s just another way Olsen doesn’t fit the hypothetical job description for the ideal Dynamo manager job description.
Olsen may prove Dynamo fans wrong and not only improve the club in the short term, but build long-lasting success superior to what he achieved in D.C. But the optics of all this probably mean fans are going to give him a much shorter rope than they might have given a different hire.
That’s far from ideal at a club with only whose starting point is one playoff appearance since 2014, and whose majority owner and general manager are only in their second seasons in the role. Sleeping giant or not.
From Olsen’s perspective, maybe this is one of the few jobs he had serious potential to land. Or maybe the familiarity those he is working with is more important at this juncture than the ability to survive over the long term. But if the goal is proving he is more than the manager he was at D.C. United, the situation in Houston isn’t the best launching platform.
